Good Words

I died for beauty but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?

"For beauty," I replied.

"And I for truth, the two are one;

We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

- Emily Dickinson

Inescapable Uncertainty

I suppose I simply need to embrace my many assignments with a sort of feverish motivation...which I know I can do, I've done it before...but I find that my mind is wandering far more than it used to . My focus slips out the window and drifts toward the in-concrete images and emotion bouncing around inside of me, so intangible that I have trouble describing them. I have not yet decided whether this change in focus ability is acceptable or not...is it a good thing?

I feel that I am at a very uncertain point in my life.

I have so many opportunities before me, and I am so afraid that in choosing one path, I destroy another. In one moment I want nothing more than to contend myself working in a lab, observing the subtleties of microscopic life and bending to my creative will...and the next moment I am seized bin a desire to devote myself to a life of structural design, lavishing in the beauty of mathematics. The ferocity of these different passions scares me. I want so much out of this life...how can I ever choose how to life it? What if I am supposed to be an architect, and I end up stuck in some lab mixing chemicals with no use to the world? And what if I am meant to be a biomedical engineer, and i get stuck slaving over designs never to be appreciated? Uncertainty terrifies me. It is the reason that I am so intimidated by death and so in awe of mathematics... Perhaps the solution is to devote myself, body and soul, to a single idea. But what idea?

Doubt plagues me. It's somethings sticky, that I can't seem to scrub from my skin, no matter how carefully I try.

It's why I stayed with Joe for so long. I felt so secure in the certainty of my love for him, and our future together. In realizing that I was trapped by him, I lost the certainty that kept me comfortable...and now I am grasping for it.

I can focus on the certainty of my class assignments and their due dates, and that satisfies me for a while, but not for long. I have found that I am a person driven to think in terms of wide concepts...I have a need to understand the larger philosophy of a situation...see the big picture, if you will. Reductionism, which is a common practice in modern scientific research, observes a small detail. This is important...

But when all of these details come together, properties emerge that were not present within the individual details...it is startlingly beautiful, the properties that one sees when small details are combined. From the basic molecules of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Phosphorous, comes the remarkable form of the human body...from single colors of paint comes a beautiful work of art...from single instruments and notes come an entity which can turn emotion into sound. I rejoice in the subtleties of the whole, and so I am not content to live my life in small detail...I can't just focus on the small steps, like my assignments or classes.

I suppose that I am just struggling to define my passion in one elegant way. I don't life thinking of my interests in a scattered, disjointed bundle...because I know they are unified by something...but what? I'm trying to define my soul, I think. Solve it, like some sort of integral problem from calculus. Is this possible? Is this desirable? I don't know.

I think that I do feel some sort of certainty for one aspect of my being...My soul is akin to that of an artists', I think. I am compelled to create beautiful and profound things with the abilities that I have. I cannot draw, or paint, or sculpt, or play an instrument, but I can understand intricate mathematical concepts and biological relationships...and so I will draw on these abilities somehow, in order to express myself. How I will do this, I do not know. I wish I did, so that I could start now.

I want nice soft lighting, and I want it to be nighttime all the time, except for sunrises and sunsets. I don't want to leave except to go to classes that I love and want to go to...and go hiking in the mountains or explore interesting places. I don't want to force myself to try and understand material that I don't comprehend at all, and am not interested in. I don't want to have to try and prove my intelligence, or worth , by being active in the most things in the best way. I don't want to have to prove that I can have an intelligent conversation with someone...I just want to have one. I don't want to constantly be confronted with my future and be forced to compete for the outcome of my life. I just want to live. I don't want to have to fight to live the way that would make me happiest. I don't want to have the responsibility of choosing whether or not to have a family. But I do. And I do have to compete, and I do have to prove, and I do have to try to understand complex material that I don't even care about. And I am feeling exhausted. All I want to do is walk around the blacktop, around and around, everyday, collecting good rocks. And all I want to do is walk on good mountains and travel all around the world, and read good books, and find good people. I am tired of this life style. It is exhausting. And stressful. I feel as though everyone around me is more competent, more driven, more intelligent, and better spoken than I am. And I feel like I have to push myself at every moment to do better, and to be better.

Welcome to Beautiful Europa

Recently I have undergone a search for clarity of my person that has ripped my soul apart.

For the past few months I have been paralyzed by indecision and fear for many reasons, too complex to enumerate here. Perhaps I have been afflicted with Quantum Delirium.

But I came across a note written by myself on the verge of this state. I find great comfort in it.

Love,

In approximately two billion years, the sun will begin its expansion and demise, in pulses. The first pulse will sterilize the Earth, making its surface molten, and glowing a dull red in the dazzling light of the enlarging Sun. Europa will become a luscious water planet...of course there won't be any oxygen to breathe. The Sun will pulse a few more times, and in four billion years will shrink down on itself. Europa will freeze again. And in the very distant future...billions of years from now, our expanding universe will have progressed to a point where galaxies aren't just moving away from each other...planets aren't just moving away from stars, and stars from themselves...but atoms will rip apart and move away...Everything will be gone, extinguished.

And so you know what? I am going to enjoy my Crunch Berries. And kiss you. Passionately. And if I don't do well in Calculus Based Physics II, that's okay. I am alive. And I love you. I am going to live life, and savor it, with an understanding that it is futile to try and worry about the small details of the future...because really, there won't be anything in two billion years that will be affected by my small decisions. We are all just dust and air and atoms that are one day going to rip apart and never make contact again. So lets love each other, and see the world, and read as many good books as possible...millions of years from now our books will be little rectangles of carbonized matter, with no printed words to discern. So let's read together. And never stress unnecessarily about silly things ever again. I can't wait to see you tomorrow! I am going to give you a beautiful kiss...and continue to kiss you many times. I look forward to our future. Whether we become Astronauts, or scientists, or whether we join the Peace Corps, and write philosophical novels is unimportant. I look forward to our future because I know I will always treasure waking up next to you. I will always enjoy tucking into your side on a couch. I will always enjoy being held close in your arms. I look forward to eating dinner with you...making dinner...and washing the dishes with you. You are my love. Perhaps love will resist the Sun's expansion...perhaps love cannot be pulled apart like the universe will be. Love has no physical substance. Love will be there, perhaps. And so, I will love you forever...as long as forever is.

- Marilyn

This note fills me up. I wish that I could make her a cup full of warm tea and encouragement. She was very wise. I think that she would approve of the the happiness I've found in my little sister's fairy house, and the Bird's Nest Fungus growing in my backyard.

Words I savor.

This poem sticks thick in my heart.

Here a pretty baby lies,

Sung asleep with lullabies:

Pray be silent and not stir

Th' easy earth that covers her.

- Robert Herrick

A tea-time read.

I offer you an article from one of my most beloved magazines, Wired, that has put some thoughts I have had for a while into words...

Appeal to the Heart

Climate change is real Evolution is true. And science needs to up its PR game

On the final day of last winter's meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a panel convened to discuss the growing problem of climate change denial. It went poorly. Rather than brainstorming methods for changing public perception, the speakers wasted three hours trying to find someone to blame. Was it an anti-global-warming campaign by the coal industry? Journalists trying to make their stories appear "balanced"? The Climate-gate emails from the University of East Anglia?

But those are the wrong questions. What the scientists should have been asking was how they could reverse the problem. And the answer isn't more science; it's better PR. When celebrities like Tiger Woods or Tom Cruise lose control of their image, they don't waste time at conferences. They hire an expert. What the climatology community needs is a crackerjack Hollywood PR team.

Climate scientists know people don't believe them; they just haven't responded well. "They have to do a better job than the other side," says Kelly Bush, founder and CEO of ID, the entertainment industry's largest independently owned PR firm. Bush's clients include Patrick Stewart, Dustin Hoffman, Ellen Page, and comeback king Pee-wee Herman.

Bush says researchers need a campaign that inundates the public with the message of science: Assemble two groups of spokes-people, one made up of scientists and the other of celebrity ambassadors. Then deploy them to reach the public wherever they are, from online social networks to The Today Show . Researchers need to tell personal stories, tug at the heartstrings of people who don't have PhDs. And the celebrities can go on Oprah to describe how climate change is affecting themand by extension, Oprah's legions of viewers.

"They need to make people answer the questions, What's in it for me? How does it affect my daily life? What can I do that will make a difference? Answering these questions is what's going to start a conversation," Bush says. "The messaging up to this point has been 'Here are our findings. Read it and believe.' The deniers are convincing people that the science is propaganda."

In a handful of cases, nonprofits are trying to do what scientists won't. A group started by high-profile blogger Anil Dash, Expert Labs, is helping the White House with outreach to scientists, and Dash is operating from the same playbook as Bush. "We need to make the narrative more compelling. Scientists risk their lives and fortunes to do something that is, in many cases, an act of faith. They're heroes. It's a beautiful thing," Dash says. "Imagine the impact if a scientist said, 'I've been working in climate science for 20 years, and it breaks my heart that people don't believe in what I do.'"

This kind of talk unsettles scientists. "Scientists hate the word spin . They get bent out of shape by the concept that they should frame their message," says Jennifer Ouellette, director of the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a National Academy of Sciences program that helps connect the entertainment industry with technical consultants. "They feel that the facts should speak for themselves. They're not wrong; they're just not realistic." By and large, Dash says, "scientists have withdrawn from the sphere of public culture. They have contempt for the lighthearted fun of communication."

"Scientists feel the facts should speak for themselves. They're not wrong; they're just not realistic."

It didn't even occur to the AAAS panelists that someone might find that here's-the-data-we're-right attitude patronizingand worthy of skepticism. "Until scientists realize they need us, we can't help them," Bush says. "They have to wake up and say: 'I recognize it's not working, and I'm willing to listen to you.' It's got to start there." Science increasingly must make its most important cases to non-scientistsnot just about climate but also evolution, health care, and vaccine safety. And in all of those fields, the science has proven to be incapable of speaking for itself. It's time for those with true passion to get over the stigma, stand up, and start telling their stories.

By: Erin Biba

http://www.wired.com/magazine/?intcid=gnav

In need of a cup of tea...

A dear friend sent this to me a while back...it touched a part of me deeply, and I think of these words often.

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I do not die.

-Mary Elizabeth Frye